This seems fair enough. After all, if I choose to smoke and drink to a wildly unhealthy degree, there’s only one man to blame, and that’s the Prime Minister. I was already angry with him over his repeated failure to cook my meals, wash my clothes and write my articles, but his failure to discourage me from spending my own money on things I’m free to spend it on however stupid and dangerous it may be… Frankly, it’s the straw that broke the camel’s back.

This morning the Today programme held a short debate on the temporary abandonment of the plain packaging idea. Among those taking part was Mark Field, the Tory MP for Cities of London and Westminster.

“I warmly support the Government’s decision to look at this again,” he said. Tobacco was already strictly regulated, and it would be unfair to prevent tobacco companies branding their product as they saw fit.

“While we live in a free society,” he explained stoutly, “advertising is an important part of that freedom.”

Dreamily the listener recalled the motto of the French revolution – “Liberté, Egalité, Publicité” – and those stirring lines from Mel Gibson’s Braveheart. “They may take our lives – but they’ll never take our right to commission Saatchi & Saatchi to dream up a multi-million-pound television campaign to flog our new range of must-have sporrans!”

It would be wrong to infer from his argument that Mr Field does not have the public interest at heart. The man has strict ethical standards. After all, he said earnestly, “we don’t want to encourage young people to take up advertising.”

Confused-sounding pause.

“Er, smoking,” he corrected himself hastily.

Personally, I’m perfectly happy for young people to take up advertising, provided they are warned of the dangers and don’t do it in the presence of others.

Later an Urgent Question on the subject was asked in the Commons.

“The health of the nation is being sacrificed to the interests of big tobacco!” wailed Diane Abbott, Shadow Minister for Public Health.

“We have not made a decision!” protested the junior Health minister Anna Soubry. Not often you can make governmental indecision sound like a boast.

Still, she enjoyed a fair amount of support from the benches behind her. Christopher Chope (Con, Christchurch) argued that the use of plain packaging had done little to deter young people from buying illegal drugs.